I had no topic in mind this evening, so I asked Trevor what I should blog about. He suggested I write about his name. So, here goes …

Our youngest is named Trevor Christian Thorp. Trevor was an Irish/Welsh name we both liked; in addition, it has good denotations: industrious and prudent. It apparently can also mean “great settlement.”

All of our kids have middle names of family significance – Brendan’s is “James,” after me; Gabriel’s is “Venjohn,” which is Jodi’s nearly unique maiden name; and Emma’s is “Rose,” after my dad’s beautiful mother who died when he was young. With Trevor, we struggled – the male family names to choose from were Kenneth, Daryl, Frank, Duane, Arnold and Firman. (I made a brief, half-serious, and ultimately unsuccessful bid for Bruno, which, along with Brownie, was my Polish great-grandfather’s nickname in America. His real name, Bronsilaw (BRO-nee-swaff), means “armor or weapon of glory; glorious protector” …) So we went with something that spoke to the values and faith of both our families – Christian.

And Thorp is, well, Thorp – meaning “small village or hamlet” in Middle English. Appropriate enough for small-town folk like us – and an interesting contrast to the alternative meaning of Trevor.

There you go, Trevvy! Brendan James, Gabriel Venjohn, Emma Rose and Trevor Christian – that’ll do, I guess …